Friday, April 21, 2017

Ethnic Sorting Out of South Caucasus Nearly Complete

Paul
Goble

Staunton, April 21 – A century ago,
the territories that are now Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia were extremely
mixed ethnically, but as a result of a combination of conflicts and government
policies, the three countries are far more ethnically monolithic than they were
with fewer of each living in the other two.

In the current issue of Moscow’s Demoscope weekly, demographer Anzor
Sakhvadze examines the shifting ethno-demographic balance in the south Caucasus
with particular attention to the shifts among the three titular nationalities
over the last 100 years when good census materials are available (http://demoscope.ru/weekly/2017/0723/tema01.php).

There
were six censuses during the Soviet period (1926, 1939, 1959, 1970, 1979, and
1989) and censuses in each of the three since 1991 – in Azerbaijan in 1999 and
2009, in Georgia in 2002 and 2014, and in Armenia in 2001 and 2011.Over this century, Azerbaijan increased its
share continuously, Georgia declined from the largest and Armenia also declined
but not as fast.

Azerbaijanis
have been the core of the population of their republic throughout this period,
growing from 61.2 percent in 1926 to 91.6 percent in 2009.Ethnic Russians and Armenians vied for second
place, but now the Lezgins are in second place, with Russians, Talysh and
Armenians following.

The
decline in the Armenian share of the Azerbaijani population has been dramatic.
In 1897, Armenians formed almost 20 percent of the total. In 1926, they
declined to 12 percent and remained at that level until near the end of the
Soviet period, when they fell to 5.6 percent in 1989 and then to only 1.3
percent in 2009.

As
far as ethnic Georgians are concerned, they were never numerous in Azerbaijan:
at no point did they exceed 0.4 percent of the population.

Compared
to its neighbors, Georgia has been and remains a more multi-national state. In
1926, ethnic Georgians formed 67.1 percent of the population. In 1989, their
share had risen to 70.1 percent and in 2014, to 86.8 percent, high by world
standards but low relative to the share of the titular nationalities in
Azerbaijan and Armenia.

Georgian
birthrates have been low and outmigration high. As a result, the total number
of ethnic Georgians in Georgia declined by 14.9 percent between 1989 and
2014.During Soviet times, ethnic
Russians moved in but not in huge numbers and most of them have left since
Georgia regained its independence in 1991.

Between
1926 and 1989, the number of Armenians in Armenia rose 4.1 times while the
entire population rose only 3.7 times. As a result, the Armenian share
increased and in the latter year reached 98 percent where it has remained.
Between 1959 and 1979, immigration of Armenians from Georgia, Azerbaijan and
the North Caucasus provided 20 percent of the growth of the ethnic Armenian
comment.

In
Soviet times, Azerbaijanis were the second largest nationality in Armenia, at
first growing rapidly until in 1939, they formed 10.2 percent of the population
and then falling, especially precipitously after the Karabakh conflict broke
out. Today, there is not a single Azerbaijani left in Armenia “for all
practical purposes,” the demographer says.

Russians
were the second largest minority until the 1980s when they were displaced by
the Kurds. There were never many Georgians in Armenia, and today there are only
617 of them according to the last census. In fact, “today Armenia is
practically a monoethnic state where there is a very insignificant opportunity
for further ethnic transformation.”

With
regard to the concentration of the titular nationality in the respective
countries, the three vary as well. Georgians were until the post-Soviet period,
with 95.1 percent of all Georgians in the USSR living in that republic.Armenians were exactly the reverse: Only 66.7
percent of all Armenians living in the USSR lived in the Armenian Republic.

Azerbaijanis
occupied an intermediate position. Eighty-five percent of Azerbaijanis lived in
Azerbaijan at the end of Soviet times, although outmigration means that that
figure has declined somewhat in recent decades. As a result of all these
shifts, Armenia and Azerbaijan are now mono-ethnic states, while Georgia is
somewhat less so but moving in that direction.